A guide from After Pickup
How much time do kids actually have after school?
Set your school day and see the free time left before bed.
Updated
Your afternoon
School ends at . Pickup and the trip home take minutes, then snack and homework take minutes. Dinner is at for minutes, and bedtime is .
We live in .
The afternoon, end to end
Free timePickup, snack and homeworkDinnerDaylight until sunset
See how this changes through the year in our daylight guide.
How much free time do kids have after school?
With school out at 3:00 PM, 30 minutes of pickup, 45 minutes of homework, dinner at 6:00 PM and bed at 8:30 PM, a kid has about 3 h 45 min of free time, roughly 19 hours across a school week. Pickup, homework and dinner take about a third of the 5 h 30 min between the bell and bedtime.
Every number in the tool is an example, so set it to your own day. For the light side of the afternoon, see daylight after school and how many outdoor hours you really get. Ideas for the free part: our fort building bin and the craft closet.
Sources and method
Sources: sunset times from the NOAA solar calculation; sleep ranges from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine consensus statement, endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The ribbon runs from the end of school to bedtime. Pickup and travel come first, then snack and homework. Dinner sits at the time you choose, and if homework runs into dinner it picks up again right after. Everything else before bedtime is free time. A school week is five times one day.
Daylight: sunset comes from the NOAA solar calculation for the same 51 cities as our Daylight after school guide, in that city's time zone. For today we interpolate between the monthly average sunsets, which lands within a few minutes of the exact time. Free minutes in daylight are the free minutes before that sunset.
FAQ
How much sleep do school-age kids need?
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 9 to 12 hours in 24 hours for children 6 to 12, and 8 to 10 hours for teenagers 13 to 18, in a consensus statement endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. With a 7:00 AM wake time that means a bedtime around 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM for a 6 to 12 year old.
What time should a 10 year old go to bed?
Count back 9 to 12 hours from wake time. A kid who wakes at 7:00 AM needs to be asleep by 10:00 PM at the latest, and many families aim for 8:00 to 8:30 PM.
How long should homework take?
A common rule of thumb is about 10 minutes per grade level a night, so about 30 minutes in third grade and an hour in sixth. Put your own number in the tool to see what it costs in free time.
Does the tool count daylight?
Yes. Pick a city and it marks today's sunset on the ribbon and counts how many free minutes fall before dark.
Cite: After Pickup, "How much time do kids actually have after school?" updated Oct 27, 2026.
Last updated .